News bites: Solar power plant moves to China, natural-gas leak in Gulf, and more

As the White House prepares for Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit this week, the shuttering of a solar power plant in Massachusetts is taking on new significance.

Evergreen Solar is packing up and moving to China, and the company says it’s because the United States hasn’t offered consistent incentives for renewable energy.

“Evergreen Solar says it has no choice but to produce in China instead. And with the Massachusetts plant go 800 jobs. But worker Andrew Koenigsberg doesn't blame his bosses. He blames Congress,” the radio program "Marketplace" reports.

Meanwhile, ClimateWire takes a closer look at the “complex linkage between American clean energy technology and Chinese capital and markets that will be a subject in this week's U.S.-China summit in Washington led by President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao.”

The Australian Broadcasting Co. reports that environmentalists are not happy about their government’s decision to grant BP permission to drill in deepwater off the country’s coast.

“There has been a furious reaction to the Australian government's decision to grant deep-sea drilling permits to BP, the ABC reports.

And The Wall Street Journal reports on a natural-gas leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

“Federal regulators said Monday that Apache Corp. (APA) has reported a suspected natural gas leak at one of its Gulf of Mexico platforms and, as a result, has shut-in some of its nearby pipelines,” the Journal says.

“The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement said in a news release that the platform, which has not produced natural gas in more than a decade, is currently used to process gas and condensate from other offshore facilities. It sits about 90 miles south of Lake Charles, La. in 173 feet of water, regulators said.”